


Brand New Day

by MissDavis



Series: Consolation Prizes [1]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Babies, Breakfast, Everyone Is Alive, Multi, Parenthood, Parentlock, because none of them know what they are doing, it takes a village, like most new parents tbh, mention of breastfeeding, pre-johnlockary, references to the aftereffects of childbirth, trust me no one's having sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-13
Updated: 2018-04-13
Packaged: 2019-04-22 04:41:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,541
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14301039
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MissDavis/pseuds/MissDavis
Summary: Breakfast, babies, and three people trying to do their best.





	Brand New Day

**Author's Note:**

  * For [redbuttonhole](https://archiveofourown.org/users/redbuttonhole/gifts).



> For the [ 221b-Consolation Fest](https://221b-consolation.tumblr.com/), I asked for prompts and got these two lovely ideas, which I combined: 
> 
> From Anonymous: _I like to imagine if John, Sherlock, and Mary had an understanding from day 1 that they were equal partners and equal parents to Rosie. No living apart or Uncle Sherlock nonsense. Don't know if that constitutes a prompt but I'll throw it out there._
> 
> From Redbuttonhole: _johnlockary... breakfast?_

Sherlock woke to the scent of breakfast wafting through his flat. Most mornings Mrs. Hudson just brought him tea and biscuits, but maybe she was feeling particularly motherly today. He could use the food, and the attention, if he was being honest. He'd had no one to talk to for weeks now. John insisted he was welcome to visit him and Mary anytime, but Sherlock knew they were still trying to adjust to life with a newborn, and his presence would only make that more difficult.

A fresh-cooked breakfast sounded—and smelled—delightful, though. Much better than the dry toast he'd been eating since he'd run out of the good jam last week. He rolled out of bed and stumbled into the kitchen to find John standing at the hob, frying eggs. John glanced up at him and grinned. "Morning. Hope you don't mind. Mary's still got cravings, for some reason. She wants eggs and sausage every morning."

Sherlock blinked at him, then glanced at the toaster that sat on the worktop next to him. John had sealed up the loaf of bread that Sherlock had left open yesterday. He'd had dry toast for dinner last night, too, but now there was a brand new jar of raspberry jam that hadn't been there when he'd gone to bed. His stomach growled at the sight, or maybe at the thought of eggs and sausage, cooked by John, who for some reason had left his home and come to Baker Street to make a breakfast that Mary requested.

John reached over and clicked on the tea kettle, then waved his spatula at Sherlock. "Go ask Mary if she wants a cuppa. She's had coffee but I don't think it's working very well."

By now Sherlock was awake enough to deduce that Mary was also here in his flat, though why, he couldn't imagine. He slipped past John and made his way out into the sitting room. Sure enough, Mary was there, flat on her back on the sofa but awake, little Rosie asleep on her chest. Rosie looked cherubic, her head turned to one side, a tiny fist pressed to one cheek; Mary looked fairly terrible. Sherlock opened his mouth to ask her when she'd last had a shower but she shushed him with a single raised finger before he had the chance.

"Don't you dare wake her," she whispered, voice hoarse. He stepped closer to hear her better. "This is the longest she's slept since we brought her home. Going into the third hour now."

Sherlock didn't like to go to sleep himself, but once he did, a seven or eight-hour stretch was ideal, especially if it lasted into mid-morning. It was barely even eight o'clock right now. What time had the Watsons got here? And why? He squinted at Mary, looking for a clue, but he still hadn't had any caffeine yet, and he'd never been very good at deducing her, anyway. Best to be straightforward, instead. "Why are you here?"

Mary sighed and stretched her neck, rolling her shoulders as much as she could without disturbing Rosie. "Because. We need help."

Oh. Of course. Why else would they come to him? Magnussen was dead, but there were doubtless a host of other threats from both Mary's and John's past that they would need him to take care of. "What is it? Is there a mystery I need to solve or just a threat that needs to be eliminated?" He began to pace between the window and the door to the flat. "Do we need Mycroft's interference or will John's gun be en—"

"We need help taking care of Rosie."

Sherlock stopped moving. Help taking care of Rosie. That was— "Mrs. Hudson has a bit of experience with her nephew, but she's getting up there in age and—"

"No. Sherlock. Not Mrs. Hudson." Mary shifted on the sofa, lifting herself onto her elbows. Rosie squirmed and let out a soft squeal. "We need you."

He stared at her. Some sort of elaborate joke, obviously, but it wasn't very funny and she didn't look like she was enjoying the staging of it very much. But there was no better explanation. "I can't help you with a baby."

"Yes, you can." John had joined him in the sitting room. Sherlock could feel him standing just behind him to his left, very close, but he didn't turn around to look. Rosie had opened her eyes and was squealing louder now, wriggling her head back and forth as if trying to bury her face in Mary's breastbone. 

Mary winced and rolled onto her side, sliding so she ended up with her back against the sofa cushion and Rosie lying in front of her. She might think she needed helping caring for a baby, but she moved with a practiced ease, although she was obviously still in pain. Sherlock looked away as she unfastened the top buttons on her blouse. Rosie's squealing stopped immediately. 

John put his arm around Sherlock's torso, a hug from one side that felt very real but was obviously an extremely vivid hallucination. "We can't do this alone. And we don't want you to be alone, either, so this is the obvious solution."

Sherlock looked down at John, who was watching Mary and gently rubbing his fingers along the fabric of Sherlock's dressing gown, just over his ribs. Perhaps it was John who had lost it—sleep deprivation had led him to believe that the best way to parent involved cooking eggs in a kitchen filled with dubiously harvested eyeballs and massaging the side of Sherlock's chest while Mary nursed the baby on the sofa.

He ignored John's hand, but didn't pull away from him, either. "I've no experience with child care."

"Neither do we," Mary said. "I babysat twice when I was a teenager, then said never again. So we'll need to learn how to do this together. We're all over 40, none of us ever planned or expected to have a child, and frankly we're all sort of a mess. Rosie will need all three of us if she's ever going to have a chance at a decent life."

"I most certainly am not over 40," Sherlock said, because it was the best rebuttal he could come up with. Rosie had stopped suckling and Mary was stroking the thin blond hair on her head and Sherlock knew he should look away but he couldn't.

John gave him a squeeze around the waist and then dropped his arm, stepping away. Sherlock caught himself before he could sidestep toward him, his body searching for the warmth it had lost. 

"Look, Mary and I have talked about it a lot, and we really do believe this is the best thing we could do. But we also agreed that if you want us to leave, we will, but—"

"Don't leave." Sherlock half-turned toward John and wrapped his left arm around his shoulders. He held the other arm out toward Mary and Rosie, though he didn't expect them to be able to join in the hug. "Don't leave."

John wiggled a bit beneath Sherlock's grasp; Sherlock loosened his grip enough to let him speak. "We won't leave. You'll help us?"

"Of course. I made a vow. I just thought there would be more detecting and shooting and less—vomit." He nodded toward the small puddle Rosie had just deposited on the sofa. 

"It's not vomit, just a bit of a burp." Mary groaned as she sat up, transferring Rosie so she lay across her thigh. "Could one of you reach the nappy bag?"

Sherlock spied the bag sitting on the floor and lifted it onto the coffee table where Mary could reach it. She pulled a festive lilac and white cloth from the side pocket and used it to wipe up the mess. "We know how much you love this flat, Sherlock, so if you don't mind, we thought—"

"Of course! Of course." The room upstairs was large, and could be sub-divided later on, as Rosie grew, or perhaps a dehumidifier could solve the damp problem down in 221C. 

"Mary's going to need to use your bedroom for a while. She can't really climb the stairs very well." John gave a lop-sided grin. "We're both medical professionals but we never realized how troublesome a couple of stitches could be."

"Oh, God, don't remind me." Mary lifted Rosie and stood, moving gingerly as she stepped around the coffee table toward Sherlock and John. "Her head doesn't look that big, does it?" She kissed Rosie's hair. "I truly think I'd be better off right now if I'd had a Caesarean."

Sherlock blinked and added that information to his file to be deleted as soon as possible. He put his arm around John again and then brought Mary and Rosie into the embrace as well, taking care not to smother anyone. Everyone smelled like they needed to shower, but there was also a sweetness that he didn't recognize, which must have been coming from Rosie. And breakfast. He could still smell breakfast, an enticing aroma that had now spread completely through his flat. Their flat. He inhaled deeply and then turned to lead them all into the kitchen.


End file.
